Gordon Ramsay Sues Over Shark Fishing, Hair Transplant Emails

Celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay is suing publicist and former News of the World editor Phil Hall, alleging that he sold private information gleaned from hacked emails to a British newspaper last year.

Ramsay suit is seeking damages for breach of privacy from Hall, who is now chief executive of the PR firm PHA media. Ramsay claims Hall got the information from the chef's former business partner and father-in-law, Christopher Hutcheson.

It came out in a legal battle last year between Hutcheson and Ramsay that Hutcheson unlawfully accessed Ramsay's emails. The dispute was settled with Ramsay buying him out earlier this year.

Ramsay's lawyers are claiming that Hall conspired with Hutcheson to publish personal information about the chef while the dispute with the chef was ongoing. Hall's lawyers said that the public relations man did not know that any emails had been unlawfully intercepted.

The information Ramsay claims was sold by Hall to the Daily Mail concerned a shark-fishing trip attended by the chef shortly before he appeared in a TV program deploring the trade, the high court was told.

The court heard that Hall also leaked information to the press about Ramsay's hair transplant, according to the U.K.'s Guardian newspaper.